New advisor payments !!

[farmer]

hereticus said:

Joy, and others who have posted on this subject - aren't you jumping to false conclusions and getting carried away by your enthusiasm to unearth another conspiracy theory ?

There is nothing in the mailer to suggest that public liability cover is being withdrawn, and we need have no fear regarding going about our jobs in a sensible and professional manner. Everybody is still fully covered by Hillarys public laibility cover so please stop this scaremongering.

If you read the communication properly it says that 'if damage is incurred through clear negligence we will expect the advisor to bear the cost'. The key phrase in this is "clear negligence" i.e incompetence combined with stupidity.

I posted a story the other day about drilling through a concealed cable in a conservatory. If that happened again in a couple of weeks time the situation would be no different. It happens that I resolved that particular problem myself but, that aside, Hillarys would have settled any claim from the customer and, in the future, Hillarys would still settle any claim from the customer. Nothing has changed in that respect.

I have spoken to Ross Kenney this morning (yep, on a Saturday) because I was worried about where this particular thread was going and I can give some unofficial clarification which, in due course, will also be clarified officially.

The phrase 'clear negligence' means precisely that - if you walk over a customer's new cream carpet in muddy boots, why should Hillarys pay ? If you weigh 16 stone and decide to put your whole weight on a plastic toilet seat, why should Hillarys pay ? The only advisors who need have any concern about this measure are the total idiots who treat both the company and their customers with contempt. For the rest of us everything stays the same.

Ross recognises that this particular matter has not been communicated clearly and will address the issue of clarification as quickly as possible, but there is no intention to penalise anybody for anything which is not entirely, totally, and culpably the result of their own clear negligence. Accidents happen to the best of us (like mine this week) and will still be covered as they always have been.

yes but hereticus who will theybelieve 16 stone or not , the toilet seat issue has happened to me, I am tall enough to reach 90% of most windows quite easily and hillarys had to pay for a claim on a broken toilet seat, and i never touched the bloody thing.

So who will back us up when we are trying to defend ourselves.

In 16 years i have had 4 claims, only one was genuine...........

I tell you i dont need this nuts

[dibsdobs]

I do not have time to fully comment on this right now, but my immediate first thoughts are

I welcome the new clarity in the structure of payments to and from advisers. The rest is spin, confusion and benefits Hillary's much more than us.

" per job completed" payments, could mean multiple trips for just £20. not acceptable, unless its our fault.

There is nothing new in the amounts offered to us as compensation. If anything we will get less. I always insisted on £20 call out and £10 per hour after that, per trip, not as it now says "per job completed".

Commission should have gone up. We are expected to do the first dor for free now, not acceptable. To those that say, "we have always done dor's for free" I say more fool you I have not and will not. This will need to be re-contracted.

Any service calls booked in my diary that in my estimation should be worth more than £20 will be ignored.

Why go to all the trouble of the forums to gather information, and not then have a forum to present possible solutions. This letter should of been a proposal of ideas that were presented to us for our considered opinion. Not trumpeted with a self important sticker on the envelope, like its the thing we have all been waiting for.

Another example of panic, ill thought out decision making and unconsidered implementation.

All this is needlessly complicated.

[kakalanka]

Hi Ross,

It seems to me that rather than Advisor issues be addressed (the list is well known), all that has happened is that the "pie" has been divided in a different way to accomodate supposed Advisor issues, at no cost to Hillarys.

As an Advisor of 1 year's standing I speak with no real authority but as someone from "civvy street" this is typical of an organisation such as Hillarys.

There is no real concession to the issues of importance to us all, just a juggling of numbers within the pie. We are all a disposable commodity as far as hillarys are concerned and, although I do not have any real personal issues with the company, I find todays mailer unimpressive.

For example, as a full-tme advisor, I do not fit after 6 o'clock, I'm happy to make sales calls, but thats all. How will this be applicable if Sevice Calls are to be booked at HO. I'm usually pretty much booked up and have to accomodate Sevice Calls between appointments made by myself, the last thing I need is the Company decimating my diary and there is no way that I can apply the rule of " no Service Calls after 6 O'Clock" at present.

So although superficially it seems as if we are being listened to, to me this is a bit of a "snow job", i.e., re-jigging the current situation to accomodate our concerns.

Incidentally, I am not one of those who typically speak with "venom" about the company., I'm usually fairly philosophical about most of the issues expressed on this forum.

As a relatively new advisor I have been called in to remedy problems caused by Advisors of many years standing in my area, so it is not always new advisors who need support. So, much as I respect those with many years served, it is not always the case that they have the divine right to be considered "the best". For this reason Hillarys will always consider Advisors "disposable" and therefore unimportant in the scheme of things. This is typically reflected in the attitude shown to us all. Some try to contribute to the benefit of all, especially on this forum, thank you by the way, but it seems to me that that Advisors are considered to be the "fly in the ointment" despite being told we are 50%? of the reason why customers buy from Hillarys.

There are no real concessions to advisors in the new system and, with additional availability being imposed on us all, just the further opportunity to pay for the priviledge of being overworked (mismeasures), etc.

We are not fools so please do not treat us as such.

[golfsthegame]

Having received the letter from John Risman and all the postings about it I am not surprised but I am dismayed by the negativity that appears to prevail.
For those who have jumped or are considering jumping the ship have you taken all considerations into account?

If in business entirely on your own account the following will apply.

1. Public Liability Insurance will have to be paid for.

2. All mismeasures will be down to you and will have to be paid for in full.

3. You will be faced with offering the customer a discount for late delivery etc. and this will affect your earnings.

4. All stationery will be paid for by you.

5. Your supplier may or may not compensate you for wrongly supplied blinds but I bet you will have to fight for it and this will take up plenty of your valuable time.

6. All advertising and promotional work will have to be done by or paid for by you.

7. In fact think of any cost incurred and it will have to come out of your turnover.

There are many things involved in running your own business and working under contract to Hillarys takes quite a few of these out of the equation.

If we were directly employed by Hillarys then we would expect many of the things that you are looking for to be a matter of fact.

WE ARE NOT DIRECTLY EMPLOYED BY HILLARYS AND THEREFORE MUST ACCEPT THAT THERE ARE RISKS INVOLVED IN OUR SELF EMPLOYMENT.

This does not however preclude us from negotiating a better deal and this is exactly what is happening now but you cannot expect things to change overnight.

As a manager in my past life I have been involved in negotiations with some of the bigger unions and beleive me the pace involved with the negotiations with Hillarys is quite normal and could indeed be a lot slower.

At the end of the day it is not in the interests of Hillarys to alienate all there advisors as these are the people who bring in the business but in fairness to Hillarys it is their business and they will feel justified in trying to exert as much control as possible in the day to day running of their business.

By the same token we the advisors feel justified in trying to exert as much control over our day to day running.

We will come to a final agreement somewhere in the middle which will sit well with the majority of advisors.

Those on the extremes I fear will do their own thing and I hope that this does not upset the applecart for those who are reasonably happy with their lot.

[silktown1]

£20 flat rate for service call
i don't want to do them any more.
how many times do you go to a service call ,go home ,job done?
not very often.
its usually go to customer ...go home ,do d.o.r 2 weeks later go back and re fit new blind ,works out about £3 an hour.after expenses. I DO NOT NEED THE AGGRO.

[desmorse]

Rather than loads of us bombarding Ross, our FSMs or the advisor feedback email with queries on this, I think there needs to be a "coming together" of views. Perhaps a few of the people who attended the original forums would like to see this first phase through. Then again, they may feel sufficiently bloodied and bruised to want to keep their heads down a second time. And who could blame them?
I find much of this so ambiguous that I think if I asked 6 FSM's the same question, I'd get 6 different answers.
My initial questions .........
1) £15/multiple DOR raised. (1st included in commission) So if I have 4 blinds wrong on first fit, is this 1 or 4 DORs? Do I get £45 or not? Or is it only if 1 of these 4 is wrong again on subsequent fit?
2) £15/service call within guarantee Hillarys error. Can't think of any instance where Hillarys would accept it's their error after, say 9 months.
3) £20/Service call within guarantee, other advisor. So if I have to to do 2 calls, 1 to check and re-order, 1 to fit, am I getting £20/job or £20/call? Currently I'd book that as 2 hours and get £25. I'm not doing 2 calls for £20 and taking a 20% pay cut. This isn't an ad hoc case - this is normal practice.
4) Service call outside guarantee - small service call charge £15-£20. Fine as long as Hillarys staff stop telling everyone £15 fixed price.
5) Mis-measures £20/blind. Funny how when in Hillarys favour it's categorically per blind, when in our favour ambiguous! In principle, I accept taking responsibility for my own errors, but John Risman doesn't seem to want to take responsibility for his, or his organisation. Like Mike, I do a lot of blinds with very few mismeasures (sods law, I probably now have several looming). I am human - I'm not a number or machine. If JR can accept errors from his company he should be able to accept the odd one from me. I think mismeasure fine should be based on a percentage of the number of blinds fitted in a given period, say every 3 months to allow smoothing.
6) Damage to be paid for by advisor where clearly negligent. Who determines that a) damage was caused by advisor, and b) due to negligence? Absolute minefield, but in 16 years I can only remember 1 pane of glass, 2 tiles and 2 ornaments, so may not be a big issue. But again, who knows what tomorrow will bring? And with the type of customer we now visit, spurious claims are more likely.
7) Large claims to be negotiated with FSM. Well, Nonails would just love that! Another tool for piss-poor FSMs to beat unloved advisors with. Doesn't matter where the fault lies, advisor or FSM, if there's a poor working relationship, this is just another source of aggravation.
8) Commission clawbacks after invoice paid. OK, you've accepted this was wrong, what's happening about the money taken in the past.

JR says in his letter "Our ultimate aim is to improve our working relationship with you ..........". Followed by 6 un-numbered pages (wasn't actually sure what order to read them in) of THIS IS WHAT'S HAPPENING AND IT STARTS ON ....... Sorry JR, but if you really wanted to improve your relationship with us, shouldn't you have floated some of these ideas out and got a reaction, rather than presenting a woolly-worded fait accompli?

I also agree with many of the other comments regarding liability. We took this contract on, on the basis of low reward for low risk. The risk is raised, the reward isn't.

I somehow think Hillarys are going to profit from this

[Bear]

EH Up I just cannot wait until the late long lamented Nonails gets back from his trip up North and reads his mailer ....

I cant wait to see his posting......

I bet he will be laughing his socks off.....

I know he would post something a bit caustic, but now as he has his boat set up and sails are ready he must be thanking his lucky stars he is orf!!!

Funny ---the more I read this lot the more I read duplicity, and position taking by Hillarys with a " Here it is ,like it or piss off undertone..."

Homuch longer I willwant to carry on in this environment is sololy a matter for me, but I certainly have my jury out considering the verdict right now.

Isn't it just great to see all the new postings from old frieds who rarely come on this site???

That mailer sure as hell kicked a few kennels this morning..
but you cannot expect to see unanimity amongst so many folks.

Nonails, come back soon and open your mail, and post your feelings before you leave---please?

Dodgybracket, I would take that job mate, it looks like a runner
You have never been truly happy since the Christmas f---ups, but with both you and Nonails going there is going to be no more fun on this site???

Bear

[desmorse]

Just thought of
9) Invoice discounted at point of, or prior to, fitting by - Hillarys or Advisors fault. So this December, we all stop selling by the 10th! Hillarys say SELL SELL SELL followed by OOPS WE CAN'T ACTUALLY MAKE THEM. We take a pay cut. Hillarys say NO PROBLEM WITH WOOD VENETIANS KEEP SELLING. Followed by WE CAN'T MAKE THEM, AND EVEN IF WE COULD, WE'VE RUN OUT RAW MATERIAL. We take a pay cut. Both of these scenarios are familiar to us all, and both caused by, and the responsibility of, Hillarys management

[desmorse]

Another interesting scenario, which I experienced earlier this year.

2 wood venetian made wrongly 4 times, me 4 visits. Error totaly Hillarys fault, customer given discount.
So, I think I would have got paid extra for all the extra work, then have it taken back again because Hillarys gave discount.


If Hillarys give discount for first DOR, we're still doing more work than we should for less money.
If Hillarys give big discount for second DOR, clawback greater than £20, I'm still worse off than I should be.

[Augustus]

simple solution to problems around xmas - go on holiday for a few weeks at the start of dec and come back around 14th-15th.

/


P.

[ricko]

Well said Kakalanka
You took the words right out of my mouth. There have been no concessions given here it has been take from one hand and give with the other. From a corporate point of view what else were they going to do?
Really there has been no change, just the moving of costs around.
My biggest concern ( and yes Hereticus i have read Ross k's posting ) is us footing the damage to a customers property.
It will now be our responsibility if it was "clear negligence" on our behalf. This is obviously UNDEFINABLE.
Example: Recently I broke a customers light fitting by knocking it with a very long vertical head rail, believe it or not it was one of 12 in the same room all bought 40 years ago, so no replacement possible. I was safe in the knowledge that it would be sorted buy Hillary's to the customers satisfaction and it was.
My point is was that "clear negligence" or was it an accident a mistake, carelessness, not paying attention or whatever? There is no way of defining it!!!
I WILL NOT be entering anyone's house on Hillary's behalf from the 8th of May on wards until this matter is sorted out.
That does not mean an assurance form Hereticus or Ross K via a website chat forum. I need it in writing from Hillary's. They either cover all eventuality's or not. There is no if you do this or if that happens etc. If I need to take out my own insurance then that is a decision I will have to take but there can be NO Grey areas.
Once again great post Kakalanka.

[desmorse]

Golfsthegame,
agree with most of what you said. I've also posted in the past that the grass may not be greener elsewhere.
Have to disagree strongly on the suggestion that we are in any form of negotiation with Hillarys.
The whole tone of this letter was WE'VE LISTENED AND THIS IS WHAT'S HAPPENING AND IT STARTS NEXT WEEK. That's not negotiation, consideration or even courtesy to the people who gave up their time to meet with Hillarys earlier this year - unless of course there has been further meetings which I'm unaware of.

[BlindWizard]

I have just come home and read this letter quickly. Not had time to read all the posts tonight and will be out all tomorrow but will post a detailed response on Monday. There appear to be many issues regarding the changes BUT the key one is damage to customers property.

I agree with others that this change in contractual terms will mean we need our own insurance.

I will be writing to Mr Risman and Ross Kenny pointing out that until this liability to me is limited to a figure (that I'm happy with) or i have arranged insurance that I will not be doing any fitting from Monday 8th May. This will be interesting as I have a number conservatory roofs booked in after this date and I certainly do not have any intention taking on this liability risk for 17.5% of vat exclusive commission.
BW

PS What makes me laugh about this is that as far as I was concerned the only issue I really had was not being paid for DORs that were Hillary's fault - Now they are still not paying me for the first one even though it's their fault (they are charging me for my first mis-measure !!) and I now have to stop work until this mess is sorted out. Now even less impressed with Hillary's intentions than I was before I received this letter. Ah well one step forward and three steps back or may be many steps out the door !!!

[BlindWizard]

choo said:

. .......The fact is hillary's would not be able to operate without blanket indemnity insurance for it's advisor's. So don't worry about being covered because you are......

I'm not an expert on insurance but as insurance companies will only pay out if you have incurred a loss and can't not reclaim that from a third party this new contractual term will mean the insurance company will insist that Hillarys will have to show every endeavor has been made to claim the money back from the Advisor before the insurance company will pay them out.

[*Star*man*]

Message to ross kenney .........


I can't phone you as its after 6pm , but here's my advice to you......

First thing on Tuesday morning , please sit down with john risman and go through this whole thing again .


Am sorry to say i can't accept it . i will not sign any new contract that you will HAVE to draw up and get us to sign.

Dead in the water says it all.

Everything must be agreed properly before May 8th , and more technically not until after new contracts are drawn up and returned signed !